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Readings and Comprehension Questions
- Thérèse
Kuoh-Moukoury
Ms. Kuoh-Moukoury, born in Cameroon, became the first novelist of Sub-Saharan Francophone Africa with the publication of Rencontres essentielles.
Camara Laye was born in Guinea in 1928 during the French colonial occupation. He lived a traditional life in a snall village. His first work, The Dark Child (L'enfant noir), is autobiographical, but it is also a novel and a tale of African youth.
- Aimé Césaire
Born in Basse-Point, Martinique, Aimé Césaire was always aware of racial conflicts. In the French Caribbean, race often proved to be a burden for the descendents of slaves. Césaire completed his secondary studies in Pairs where he met Léopold Senghor. The two went on to develop the theory of Negritude, and for Césaire it was important to discover his African roots. This excerpt from Notebook of a Return to the Native Land is a long poem that he wrote at the end of World War II.
- Léopold Senghor
Léopold Senghor was born to an influential family in a small fishing village in west-central Senegal, which was then a French colony. He began to learn French in elementary school and eventually won a scholarship to study in France. For Senghor, Negritude is a cultural issue that explores the encounters between Europe and Africa, especially the questions of colonization and decolonization.
- Bernard
Dadié
Born in Ivory Coast during the time of colonialism, Bernard Dadié was actively involved in the anticolonial movement. After independence, he occupied several government posts. In the literary sphere, Dadié is known for his efforts to create a new African literature. Folk tales and the oral tradition play an important role in his work. The tale “The Black Cloth” illustrates a little girl’s personal journey and the obstacles she encounters.
- "The Legacy of Negrismo/Negritude: Inter-American
Dialogues"
Lesley Feracho is the author of this guest editor's introduction: "The Legacy of Negrismo/Negritude: Inter-American Dialogues" in The Langston Hughes Review 16:2 [Fall 1999-Spring 2001]
- "African Literature Dossier"
African literature dossier focusing on authors Ousmane Sembene and Ferdinand Oyono.